Suicide ou crime

Lawyer John Wayne's friend, a high school basketball star from his town, is shot down and then run over by a car. The death is declared a suicide by the local coroner. Wayne goes to the big city to investigate.

Wayne's directed to see Edward Ellis who is the local political boss and of course the Duke falls big time for Ellis's daughter Frances Dee. Never mind he's got a job to do, even if it costs him Dee.

This was John Wayne's one and only attempt at playing a crusader type, a scaled down version of Jefferson Smith. Ellis is a combination of the characters played by Edward Arnold and Claude Rains in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Dee combines both Jean Arthur and Astrid Allwyn. I'd say the results were mixed. Perhaps with a better script at a larger studio with more production values, Wayne might have done more with the part.

As it is there are some nice John Wayne style fight scenes in A Man Betrayed, a couple with Ward Bond, and a king sized brawl outside a polling place where Ellis is bringing in repeaters from his sponsored soup kitchens. Machine politics, American style. Hopefully none of those countries where we're crusading for democracy ever sees this film.

Ward Bond plays the moronic brother of Alexander Granach, owner of the red light district club where Wayne's friend was killed in. His performance while good, was a carbon copy of Lon Chaney, Jr.'s from Of Mice and Men. I expected him to ask Granach about the bunny rabbits any minute.

At this phase of Wayne's career, Republic was casting him in a variety of parts to broaden his casting potential in the wake of his success with Stagecoach. Herbert J. Yates of Republic films was making almost as much money loaning Wayne out as in his own films and he was trying to make him more marketable. He didn't succeed with A Man Betrayed, but it wasn't the Duke's fault by any means.

This John Wayne film is rarely seen and I was surprised to see it being aired on a local TV channel. Since I've seen just above all of Wayne's AVAILABLE films, I was excited to see this film. While it wasn't bad, it also was underwhelming since, at heart, it was just a cheap B- movie made just before John Wayne became a super-star.

When the film begins, a man is murdered. However, it's all quickly chalked up to suicide and it's all swept under the rug. What they didn't anticipate was that the dead guy had a bull-headed friend, Lynn (John Wayne) and he was intent on getting to the bottom of things. At first, the local political boss is able to make Wayne believe that there was no conspiracy and the man died of natural causes. Besides, the man's daughter, Sabra (Frances Dee) was cute and Lynn was obviously very taken with her. But, over time, Lynn starts to realize that there is more than meets the eye to all this...the local 'Progressive Party' is anything but! What's next? See the film.

This film is pretty much like most Bs--hastily written, full of plot problems and yet is entertaining. It's also featuring John Wayne as a caveman, of sorts--the sort of role folks liked back in the 40s but which will annoy many viewers with today's sensibilities. A film mostly for big-time Wayne fans and that's all--especially with the really, really dumb ending where the ultra-bad guy suddenly changes his spots!

Going out for the day and seeing the BBC had a John Wayne movie on for the afternoon I left and set the tape running. Later I started to watch it expecting a western, I was disappointed at first and then pleasantly surprised. I have seen very few John Wayne movies that were not westerns and not always good but this I enjoyed. Good storyline and a plot which was well thought out. This is the first time I have seen Frances Dee and she was very convincing in her conflict of emotions in loyalty to her father and love for the "Duke". Edward Ellis was wooden but he was old school so I could put up with that. Ward Bond was unnerving in his role as the simple-minded killer henchman. I shall keep the tape and look for more Frances Dee movies, a good actress easy on the eye - and married for 57 years to the same man - respect!!

I enjoyed watching this movie, but there is no use pretending that it has any particular merit. It is interesting to watch early John Wayne movies where he is not playing a cowboy and not fiddling with his revolver. The female lead, Frances Dee, was very interesting to watch, lively and attractive. She reminds me of Geena Davis when young as in EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY (1988, see my review). She stopped acting in 1954, aged 55, and had made 56 films by then. The story of this film is so unconvincing and implausible that it is not even worthwhile attempting to describe it. It is nonsense from beginning to end. The Hungarian émigré director John H. Auer directed the film. It is both easy to watch and easy to forget.

An American drama; A story about a country lawyer who courts the daughter of a city politician who he is investigating for corruption. This film is a crime mystery and screwball comedy but it fails to hit the mark on both subgenres because it is short on action and it brims over with dialogue. John Wayne is appealing and his scenes with Francis Dee are satisfying, but he is not so convincing as a small town attorney with small town charm. The film keeps a speedy pace but the story doesn't seem to click together because of its artifice - even the action scenes fail to produce tension because of a trace of comedy.